Hungarian Jews spark backlash with letter condemning Gaza war and local Jewish leaders

JTA — Hundreds of Hungarian Jews have denounced the Israeli government over the war in Gaza, as well as the groups that purport to represent them at home, where protests against Israel are largely banned.

“The one-sided, extreme statements of the current Israeli government and the domestic Jewish organizations and opinion leaders who dominate Hungarian public discourse do not represent our opinion,” said the letter. “We are speaking out to say that these influential actors do not act in our name, nor do they speak in our name. But we are here too.”

Over 300 Jews signed an open letter on their views, which was published online and subsequently gathered more than 1,400 total signatures from both Jews and non-Jews. It also drew a swift backlash from other community members in Hungary, where there are estimated to be between 47,000 and 100,000 Jews.

The signatories include prominent Jewish Hungarians such as Katalin Kelemen, the country’s first woman rabbi; lauded poet Lajos Parti Nagy; and Holocaust historian László Karsai. Some, such as trauma guru Gabor Mate, live primarily abroad.

The letter expresses the group’s “solidarity with all those involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” — the Israeli victims of the October 7 Hamas-led atrocities, the Palestinian civilians killed by Israel, the surviving hostages and the hundreds of thousands of Gazans experiencing “brutal destruction” compounded by “deliberate starvation.”

It also laments that anti-war demonstrations have been largely banned in Hungary, where the press is also severely restricted.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Earlier this year, Hungary announced it was withdrawing from the International Criminal Court — which issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, citing alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity — shortly before the Israeli leader arrived in Budapest for a state visit.

The group said there was “hardly a platform or institution in Hungary that would dare to engage in debates and nuanced exchange of views on the topic” of the Gaza war and the “opinions of the world’s leading human rights organizations are being ignored.”

They alleged that the Hungarian government and mainstream Jewish institutions have stifled Jews who shared their views. “Invitations have been actively withdrawn from Jewish speakers who do not represent the position of the extreme Israeli government,” they said.

But they insisted their voice was necessary, concluding their letter with the warning, “We know from Hungarian Jewish history what the price of silence is.”

The letter adds to a growing number of local flashpoints over responses to the war in Gaza.

In England, Reform rabbis were made to leave the stage of a hostage rally last month after they expressed theoretical support for Palestinian statehood.

And Orthodox rabbis who signed a recent letter calling out the Israeli government ignited an international backlash.

The Hungarian Jews’ letter has drawn sharp criticism from some in their community. György Gábor, a philosopher, called the document a “letter of hypocrisy” in an essay in the Jewish magazine Szombat.

“Self-proclaimed ‘humane’ Hungarian Jews have written their usual statement, the only real purpose of which is to cleanse their consciences by distancing themselves from the community they supposedly belong to,” Gábor wrote. “They try to pass themselves off as the ‘good Jew’ whom the surrounding world is finally willing to love because they willingly adopt the narratives of their environment.”

Hungary’s main Jewish organizations, Mazsihisz and EMIH, have not commented publicly on the letter. The community is preparing to launch a 10-day culture festival in Budapest that is focused on the arts.